CISS PHILOSOPHY & MISSION

PHILOSOPHY

Educating free, confident and adaptable people

MISSION

Canadian International School System (CISS) is an educational system whose objective is to develop future generations of passionate, enthusiastic, creative, proactive students who persevere to successfully realize their goals. Our students are educated with the necessary knowledge and important skills to succeed and be happy in this growing, moving and challenging world.

CISS News

Meet the Envizualists

By Alex Khoi Nguyen, Chris Luu, Peter Tran, Philip Pham, and Pony Hoang
All CIS Grade 11 students
This adventure began with the first clips from Pony and Peter with the passion inspired by their teacher, Mr. Keegan, these boys started making other short travel videos. The first one, Phu My Hung - Portable Sceneries, was about their neighborhood. Following that was their first contribution to the CIS House Council, the Water House Day recap video. Thank you to Mr. Mark Terrana, CIS News and CIS Alumni Jake Ho, for this opportunity last May. They finished the 2017 - 2018 school year with two videos and Pony and Peter intended to work on bigger projects like Saigon - The Emerging City during the summer. Their videos are displayed on social media networks, @envizualists on Facebook and The Envizualists on YouTube .
Fireworks - By Alex Khoi
Nha Trang - By Christ Luu
With passion rising in each boy, Pony and Peter decided to create their own photography and videography club, non-school related, called The Envizualists. Founded on September 1, 2018, The Envizualists is a seven-member group currently assisting Pony and Peter. Group members are: Alex Khoi, Chris, Nhat Minh, Peter, Philip, Pony and Troy. The Envizualists is a group of friends joined together to share their interest in photography and videography. From the beginning, the boys shared their skills and experiences by building the script, operating the camera and editing the final product.
Afterlight - By Peter Tran
Together, The Envizualists have accomplished two other official projects: Polychrome and Singapore - The Merlion City. Besides that, there have been many other smaller projects for the CIS Student Council, CIS Athletic Council, GIN Council, and the House Council. Their newest project will support the upcoming system-wide musical, CISS on Broadway.
Ha Long Bay - By Phillip Pham
"Our main objective is creating interesting short films that can capture the moments around us and introduce these to everyone.” said Pony. The Envizualists focus on the world and the beauty around them, the people, the streets, and the buildings. Those are the key things which fire their passion for making travel videos. Furthermore, the larger objective is making short films to influence everyone to get off of their couch or out of their bed to explore the big world outside. As a group of young photographers, the team seeks new objectives and tries to learn new skills.
During the work process, the team has faced many challenges in meeting their client’s expectations. However, they have managed to resolve the conflicts and build the spirit of partnership. The journey is tough, but the boys do their best and cope with the criticism to improve themselves. According to the members, teamwork is the best solution to resolve the problems, and together they stand strong facing challenges. The Envizualists grow much stronger each day and the bond is unbreakable. By taking on different experiences, learning from mistakes and overcoming challenges, the boys are able to learn, grow, and adapt to become a dream team.
In the near future, their plans are to expand and start making short films, travel to more destinations, and perhaps produce films that are outside of the travel category. They are interested in creating films in other genres such as mystery and/or thrillers.

CIS & BCIS students win the Wild Rhino Competition 2019

The Rhino Ranger just dropped a surprise visit to CIS & BCIS today!
They came to surprise the 6 winners of the rhino competition: Donald (Grade 4.4 BCIS), Denis (Grade 4.4 BCIS), Elsa (Grade 5A CIS), Kyle (Grade 7C CIS), Donald Valison (Grade 11 IB) and Minh Ha (Grade 11 IB). Congratulations!
As the Senior winners, Valison and Ha will travel to South Africa where they spend a week on a wilderness walking traills in the iMfolozi Game Reserve. These winners will join the Rhino Ambassadors group to run various awareness campaigns to educate the people of Vietnam on the rhino poaching crisis.
Denis and Donald (Grade 4.4 BCIS)
Elsa (Grade 5A CIS)
Kyle (Grade 7C CIS)
The two senior winners: Minh Ha (left) and Valison (right). They will travel to South Africa to learn more about the rhino poaching crisis.

HFH Builds another New House

On January 19th the Habitat for Humanity Vietnam at CIS and its supporters went to Long An province for their third house build.
"We feel that if students like us can make small changes, then anyone and everyone can bring a positive influence to the community we live in. We would like to thank all the volunteers who came out on that day that help us and all of you who made this happen with your generous donations" - Yu Jin Moon & Isabel Kim - CIS Grade 10, Co-leaders of HFH Club.

CISS Students attending the GIN Saigon Conference 2019

From February 22 to February 24, 2019, 24 CIS and AES students went to the annual Saigon GIN Conference. During 3 consecutive days, the students participated in GANG (Global Action Network Group) sessions & workshops. They heard from keynote speakers and took part of a large scale simulation in order to be more aware of Global Issues, including fast fashion, plastic pollution, substance abuse and so much more.

CIS learns about Acceptance, LGBTQ, and Gender Identity Issues

Through CIS’ connection with the Consul General of Canada, on November 15th, 2018 CIS hosted a the Consul’s guest in Vietnam, Canadian storyteller and proud member of the transgender community, Ivan Coyote.
Ivan is a storyteller and filmmaker working as the writer-in-residence Sandford Fleming University in British Columbia, Canada.
Ivan has written 11 books, created six full-length live shows, four short films, and three albums that combine storytelling with music. Ivan is best known for a book called Tomboy Survival Guide. Ivan regularly travels to schools and public audiences all around the world speaking about topics such as gender identity, LGBTQ issues, class, family, and social justice.
The talk Ivan gave to our 8th-12th grade students included stories of family, acceptance, and gender identity development at various stages of Ivan’s life.
Each class prepared for Ivan’s visit by reading and listening to one of Ivan’s stories, and analyzing and discussing it as a class. Ivan used an innate gift of humor and the ability to connect with our students to teach them that they’re not very different from transgender individuals. Ivan also helped the students understand that learning to accept others can be easy and should be a priority. Ivan provided a question and answer session and stayed to meet individual students as well. The students showed warm acceptance towards Ivan.
Commitment to creating a safe and inclusive environment for all students is not a new concept at CIS. Our school provides character education on character traits including respect, cooperation, and peacemaking. Both the staff and students at CIS felt honored for the opportunity to have Ivan speak at our school.
Carly Svenstrup, Elementary Guidance Counselor, CIS